The Reunion
by laffoxyzzy
Summary: Just my attempt to offset the sadness left after the conclusion of the trilogy.
1. Breakthrough

_Background info: I picked up The Amber Spyglass a few days ago from my bookshelf and read a few pages. Two days later I finished rereading the trilogy, twice. That's how much I love HDM :p Like many people, I'm sure, I felt the ending of TAS was incredibly sad. So, probably more for myself than for anyone else, I'm writing an extension to The Amber Spyglass, just to make myself stop thinking about "what if." Yes, it's pretty much plotless fluff, but I'm not going to try to expand on __Pullman__'s masterful writing any more than this. I think __Pullman__'s ending was a thousand times better than mine is, and the trilogy would have lacked much of its power if he had used a happy ending like this, but there you go. Go easy, this is my first submission on this site ;)_

Disclaimer: all material and characters are property of Philip Pullman.

Will lay restless in his bed, Kirjava on his feet. Nearly three months had passed since he had seen Lyra's tearful face disappearing through the last window, and he still wasn't anywhere near being able to put it out of his mind. He lay awake, trying not to think of her, but that was asking the impossible. Realising sleep wasn't going to come, he slowly climbed out of bed and walked to the window of his room. He stared at the full moon, wondering if Lyra was doing the same thing in her world, and found sorrow overcoming him. "Not like this," he said. "We can't." Kirjava, behind him, murmured her agreement.

Midsummer's day dawned with a bright sun and a clear sky. The sun shone through Will's window and onto his face, making him at first warm, then hot, and eventually waking him with a start. Kirjava climbed on top of him and thrust her face into his. "Do you know what day it is?" she asked. Will nodded slowly, thinking. As he'd drifted off to sleep the night before, a thought had crept into his head, and he was now trying to make sense of it. In the last few precious days he'd had with Lyra, in the world of the mulefa, the angel Xaphania had mentioned that the angels had another way of travelling between worlds, independent of the knife. Lyra had asked if it was possible for them to do the same thing, and the angel had replied that it would be, if they worked at it hard enough. Suddenly he sat up straight. "Why didn't I think of it before?" he said quietly. Kirjava looked at him, head cocked to one side. He stood up and began pacing the room, backwards and forwards.

Thirty minutes later, Will stood trembling in his bedroom, and begain to concentrate. He wasn't entirely sure what he had to do, but he likened it to something like cutting through with the knife, but without using the knife. Surely it was possible... it had to be possible, it _had to. Xaphania had said it herself, hadn't she? He began to concentrate with all his mind on the one image he had no trouble conjuring into his mind, Lyra's face. He used the image of her he loved most, her trembling hand offering him the tiny red berry in the land of the mulefa. For many minutes he held the image still in his mind, but eventually he came to realise that he was doing nothing different to the hundreds of times he had thought of her previously. He tried feeling for the invisible notches there had been when he had been able to use the knife, but they weren't there. "I guess opening windows is a job of the knife, not the mind," he said, faintly disappointed. Kirjava growled in frustration. "Let's just go to the Botanic Gardens, like we planned," she said, and Will nodded._

The Botanic Gardens were crowded with people who were out enjoying the sunshine, like Will had expected, and he hurried as quickly as he could to the spot he and Lyra had agreed on, anxious to be alone. He and Kirjava arrived to find it empty of human presence, like he had hoped, and he breathed a sigh of relief. The memory of Lyra was too precious to share with anyone except Kirjava, and he was sure that the moment would not have been the same had anyone else been there.

Will moved to the overgrown seat and sat down with a deep, overpowering sigh. Somewhere, in another world, Lyra was doing the same thing, sitting just inches from where he was in his, and he felt closer to her than he ever had. He closed his eyes and began to think of her, and as he did, a curious thing happened. Will gasped, for he was sure he had just seen something that could only have been Lyra... in the flesh, in real life. Kirjava felt it too and gave a little cry, before turning to Will, her eyes shining. "Was that... could it have been...?" Will didn't answer, but felt a huge lift on his heart, and began to understood what he had to do. Once again he closed his eyes, and and began to think, with a ferocity he didn't know he had, of Lyra. Slowly, he felt it happen again, and he saw what he knew was unmistakenably Lyra, sitting on a bench that was so similar to the one he was on, yet so different. He had absolutely no doubt that the vision was real; she looked almost exactly the same, but her hair had grown longer and she was wearing clothes he had never seen before. Surely this couldn't be an image of his imagination? His heart began to race. "Go _through," he willed himself, hoping like he never had before._

Will sat in a trance-like state for what seemed like hours, staring hungrily at the vision of Lyra, but was really only a few minutes. Try as he might, he couldn't make the progression from seeing into being, and felt himself, with an agonising sadness, slide back into his reality. Kirjava, next to him, let out a howl of incredible desolation, and Will felt tears in his eyes. How could he have come this far, only to be denied of finally reaching through to touch her? "Once more," he said quietly, and Kirjava understood. Will closed his eyes and concentrated on the image of Lyra, sitting with Pan in her arms. Once again he felt himself slip into the region between the worlds and he yearned to urge himself through, all the way through, into her world. And then, quite suddenly, he realised what he had to do, and compelled himself through. It was almost like the door into the world of the dead that he had entered with Lyra and the two Gallevspians, only infinitely stronger, and an incredible resistance pushed against him as he willed his body to reach through into Lyra's world. For an agonizingly long time he wavered, neither in one world or the other, but slowly, ever so slowly, he felt himself leaving his world behind.

For the longest time, he thought it hadn't worked, and he had simply fallen back to his world. The wood he was sitting on felt the same, the sunlight on his bare skin was unchanged, even the birdcall in the trees was exactly the same. Will's heart sank, and he opened his eyes. Then he realised he was in a very different world to his own. The _feel of the place was different, far more magical and mysterious, and he realised with a start that the sound of traffic was gone. And the most compelling evidence of all was sitting all but an arm span away, with Pantalaimon cradled in her arms._

Will felt that he would never need to breathe again, so happy did he feel, but he realised that Lyra was talking. He looked at her and saw that her eyes were closed, and she wore a dreamy look on her face. "D'ya remember, Pan, the night on the mountain in Ci'gazze, when he told you that we were the best friend he'd ever had? Only he didn't know that if you were awake, I had to be too. I think it was then that I first realised I loved him." Pantalaimon murmured in agreement. A moment later he said "It was before that, though. The first time we met him, and he made us the omelette. We knew then." Lyra sighed. "Will we ever see him again, Pan?"

Pantalaimon was silent for a while, then said quietly, "My heart says yes, but my head says no."

Will, scarcely daring to breathe, said in mock confusion, "I always thought you had a _good head on your shoulders, Pan."_

Lyra opened her eyes.

_I'll do the next chapter if someone reviews this, or if I feel like I want to continue :D_


	2. Recognition

Pantalaimon gave a gasp and jumped out of Lyra's lap onto the ground, staring with wide, suspicious eyes at the boy sitting just a few feet away. Lyra, however, had no such distrust and leapt at him with a cry of delight, touching his chest and face to make sure that he wasn't just a dream. He felt real enough, she thought.

"Will! We _knew you'd come, me and Pan, but he said you wouldn't so I wouldn't get disappointed, but I knew, really – how did you…"_

Lyra's voice faded suddenly, and she narrowed her eyes. "I thought you said you were going to break the knife," she said, confused. "We _promised the angels…"_

Will shook his head. "I did break it, right after you left. I came another way. Anyway, if I had been able to use the knife, I wouldn't have waited all this time to come. Three months… it was like a _lifetime, Lyra."_

She stared at him, open-mouthed. "So you came without… without using the knife? _How?"_

Will looked at her, at her eyes, her face, her mouth, and felt completely overjoyed at finding her again. Without meaning to, he began to laugh. She stared at him, affronted for a brief moment, but before long she began to laugh as well, and they embraced tightly. Their two dæmons stood together and watched, amused, as they clung to each other closely. Lyra started sobbing, though she couldn't remember feeling happier at any time of her life. Finally they separated, somewhat reluctantly.

"Will," Lyra finally urged. "How did you come?"

He looked at the ground. "Remember what Xaphania told us? She said angels had another way of traveling between the worlds, without using the knife, and that we could learn how to do it if we worked at it." He looked up. "I'm not sure what I did, but that's the only thing I can think of."

Lyra looked into his eyes and saw they were blazing with passion, and knew he was telling the truth. She moved closer to him and leant against his shoulder. "D'ya know what this means?" she said softly. He nodded.

For a long time they sat silent, holding each other under the warm afternoon sun. Will marveled at how similar this world was to his own; Lyra had been right, the likenesses between the two worlds were many, but he found them strangely disconcerting. These Botanic Gardens were almost indistinguishable from the ones in his own world, except for the fact that the people who occasionally strolled past all had dæmons of their own. With a shock of excitement he realised that he would be able to converse with Kirjava without whispering, or having to go to an out-of-the-way place as he had to do in his Oxford. _The future is bright, he thought._

* * * *


End file.
